Friday, October 25, 2013

Eamon had just picked me up from the Airport from my trip to (Savor). We stopped at a loal beer and Liquor store so he could get his dad some beer for fathers day. I found this, as well as several of Unity Vibrations Kombucha Beers. I was able to taste this Monday morning while Eamon was running to get his car from the Founder's parking lot.

Appearance: Opaque pink in color with no apparent accumulation of foam on the surface. Some bubbles cling to the side of the glass within, but very little carbonation is visible, except for the occasional eruption of a bubble from the base of the glass.Aroma: A faint acetic funk followed by some elements of an outdoorsy must. The typical kombucha scent. I don't really get the flavor of blackberries, however.Taste: What starts with a faint acidic fizz, slowly grows into a mellowed sweetness to finish, only to bite back again to dry out the palate in a refreshing quench. I do get a nice complexity of berry fruit, specifically blackberry here, alongside some notes of apple, grape and even a touch of banana in the very end. The aftertaste is satisfyingly fruity without being overbearing.Mouthfeel: Like I said earlier, there is a soft fizz present, that lasts the majority of the time the liquid is on the palate. It both creates a fuller mouthfeel, and a refreshing bite as it travels down the throat. I find there to be a cloying element at the back of the throat that seems to also fuel an aftertaste.Overall Impression: This is the most balance kombucha I've had to-date. It's simple by nature, but exhibits the characteristics expected in a natural, not-overwhelming way. The acetic acid is kept minimal while displaying the fruity potential of kombucha. Grape and blackberry are the most dominant flavors.

If you’re a beer geek who’s lived a virtuous life, you can only hope your heaven is something like SAVOR, the beer and food pairing event put on by the Brewers Association this past weekend in New York City. It was truly a brewhound’s paradise.

This annual soiree is a fancy affair, designed to celebrate the elegance and artistry of finely crafted beers by coupling them with gourmet foods that bring out the best in their flavors. While upscale (and at $170 per ticket, expensive), SAVOR is anything but snobby - the brewers themselves are fun and down to earth people, making it impossible for the proceedings to be stiff or uptight.

There were over 150 beers on hand, and each was paired with a scrumptious morsel of food, like a duck rillete with peach hoisin on black brioche bread, or a crispy pork belly in kimchee rice balls with green garlic aioli. There were also stations overflowing with artisanal cheeses, organic chocolates, and raw oysters.

These gourmet bites were delightful, but I soon found my beer-geek self forgetting about the food and focusing on the beer, as many were extremely rare, or in some cases, only available at the event.

“We did our first SAVOR event a few years back, and we decided to bring a couple of our best-selling beers,” said Laura Bell, marketing director for Bell’s Brewery. “We took a look around and saw the rare beers that others had brought, and we knew we had to step up our game in the future.”

Bell’s did just that this year, bringing their tart and dry Raspberry Wild One, a whirlwind of sweet raspberries, puckering sourness and oaky funk, and Black Note, a silky imperial stout they should rename “velvet fudge” for its chocolaty smoothness.

Some other standouts included Left Hand Brewing Co’s Good Juju, a 4.5 percent ABV ale with a lovely snap of ginger on the back of the flavor that made it unnaturally satisfying for a low ABV brew. It’s not a rare beer, but it’s rare that a beer this low in alcohol tickles my fancy.

Denver Beer Co’s 5.6 percent ABV Graham Cracker Porter was a roasty treat, with notes of vanilla and smoke and graham crackers that just begged for a little bite of chocolate, which happily could be found just a few steps away, courtesy of Green & Black’s Organic Chocolates.

Heavy Seas’ Holy Sheet made quite an impression as well, with its big tastes of dark fruit, caramel and brown sugar set off by a boozy undercurrent of brandy, compliments of the barrels in which this 9 percent strong ale was aged. It was paired with roasted duck and balsamic peach with toasted pumpkin seeds, and I can attest that duck, peaches, caramel and brandy are like the Beatles of food (Ringo is the brandy).

Other fun brews included Cigar City’s Cucumber Saison, a fragrant and grassy summertime treat, and Willoughby Brewing Co’s Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Porter, which featured big hits of peanut butter and coffee, both of which were sent into the stratosphere when paired with a butterscotch brownie topped with crushed pretzels.

But for me, the big winner of the night was New Holland Brewing Company, thanks to the wizardry of their wood master Tim Faith, whose work was put on full display during one of the evening’s educational salons.

His Smaug’s Breath, a variation of the brewery’s Dragon’s Milk stout aged with toasted chile de arbol, showed just how succulent a spiced-up stout can be (not an easy feat). It was paired with a coconut Gianduja chocolate made with fresh ginger ganache, and the Smaug’s Breath simply set the ginger in the candy on fire in the most delicious way imaginable.

Then there was New Holland’s Night Tripper Reserve, a variation of their imperial stout that has spent time in Bourbon, rum and whiskey barrels. I’m a guy who loves big boozy beers, and this 10.8 percent levitation of flavor delivered like few others I have tasted.

After its New York fling, SAVOR is returning to its regular Washington D.C. home next year, and if you’re a beer geek who’s looking for a little taste of heaven, I recommend you don’t miss it.

Well,
It's been my longest stretch without posting on this blog. And I've finally given into the guilt.
A lot has happened this summer, so I figured I'd finish off with the SAVOR Post and continue with everything else, post by post.
Savor was, as one might expect. Amazing.
Friday, I met Greg at the hotel and he rented a bike. With me on foot, we cruised around the city, stopping at wholefoods, and the NY Farmers Market. We finished the run with lunch at Birraria, the Dogfish Head and Italian Brewer collaboration restaurant on top of the building that housed the renowned "Eataly." The Night was spent going to the Blind Tiger, and a few other bars.
That night was spent having dinner at the hotel with none other than Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewing Company.
The event itself was glorious. There were samples of food paired with every beer. An Oyster Bar, a Cheese Bar and a Chocolate bar. I met a lot of really great people and ate and drank a lot of fantastic crafted food and beverage. New Holland did a Salon/Pairing with Smaug's Breath and Barrel Aged Night Tripper.
That night we had dinner at a great gourmet restaurant with the guys of Left Hand and Bell's. I took off around 1am and biked home on a Citibike.

I wish there was more to say, but having been almost 5 months ago, and several more posts to go, I'll keep it short.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Luck would have it, I get to go to SAVOR!
My first experience with this event was over 2 years ago while sitting in the living room of our senior house, cleverly called "The Dump." We were watching one of the first episodes of brewmasters on the Discovery Channel. It was the premier release of Dogfish Head's "Bitch's Brew" at the Savor event. I told myself I had to go someday.
Well that day is today.

A recap of yesterday:
I got to the Airport around 8:00am for a 9:55 take-off connection to Washington DC, whereupon I would have a 3 hour layover before another flight to NY which would get me in around 4:00.
At 9:15 the lady called me up to the podium and asked why I was hopping around so much? Why don't I just take a direct flight to Newark? Well, hell ya! I said. It left at 11:00 and we arrived at the Newark airport at 1:15.
Following trips on several units of transport, I checked in at the ACE Hotel (the rooms are very hip and cool) and hit the roads for some miles. Did a loop and a half around central park for nearly 11 miles. Got back to the hotel, showered, and met Fred in the lobby for a drink before taking off for the night's events.
Irony would have it,
We waited for a cab for a few minutes, and one drives up. And who gets out? Sam Calgione of DFH. He greeted Fred like old friends, and we shook hands.
This trip is going great so far.
We took our cab to a place called Spuytan Duyval, a beer bar in Brooklyn with an old apothecary atmosphere with old wooden saloon-like decour and jars of vegetables and fruit lining the backbar. Their tap-list was dominated by beers I could hardly pronounce...Aside for the New Holland Tap-takeover we were having.
We hung out there for a couple hours for Fred's debut book signing (an awesome book by the way: The Beervangelist's Guide to the Galaxy)
Ate some dinner from a local place called Fette Sau. I actually ate ribs... But trusted Greg on where they came from.
We left around 9:15 to head over to the Brewer's Pre-SAVOR-party at Brooklyn Brewing Co. Where faces like Charlie Papazian were in attendance. Had some great beer, and mingled with fellow industry folk. They had a couple food-trucks lined up outside (in the rain). I had a bunch of veggie pitas and their Greek feta fries.
Around 10:45 or so they gave last call and we downed our last beers and pitas and headed to a place called Barcade, a large bar with, you guessed it....a lot of arcade games. The taplist was pretty fantastic too. I ordered a Festina Peche (Berliner research), of which would be my last beer of the night. Water followed. By 1:00 I was ready to go. Fred and I and another fellow industry guy left to head back to Manhattan.

I brought my shitty camera, but only got a few photos before it just stopped working, I'll post what I have when I get the chance.

Friday, May 24, 2013

For the last several months I've been researching Foudre's ( The French method of spelling - while the Dutch way is "foeder"). The opportunity arose when I took over the barrel aging program for New Holland. The sour program had already trippled its barrel count, but that came with the hard realization that the work of tasting and blending each barrel is, in fact, an arduous task. With the post-blending reflection of Blue Sunday, I knew there had to be a better, more efficient way of blending bulk sour beer. The answer was Foudre's.

I asked Brett if I could begin researching and constructing a proposal. His reply - "Yeah, let's get some!" So I began searching. By talking to brewmaster Tim Hawn of Dogfish Head, Lauren Salazar of New Belgium, they were able to point me in a direction. Still, contacting numerous cooperages, barrel brokers, brewers, and tonnellerie was the bulk of the work. Months of digging and numerous dead ends later, I started to find some options. But, they were either far to expensive, too small, old, lacking structural insurance, or just crap. Finally I found Seguin Moreau, a barrel broker/cooperage that seemed to have the perfect option - 9 x 45hl horizontal French oak Foudre's that had just been emptied of white wine. Upon receiving this notification, a proposal was sent to everyone that could have influence on the financial decision of their purchase. This took more time than expected. I had let the team know the urgency of this deal, particularly because within a week 3 had already been called for. This got things moving.

A successful proposal, a fast reaction and several meetings later, our Foudre's we stuffed into a 40' flatbed and on their way from France to Holland, Michigan!

So what's a foudre?Foudre's are large oak vats, that can range from a couple hundred gallons, up to several thousand (think of Dogfish Head's Palo Santo Vats). Prior to the universal adoption of stainless steel, ALL beer was fermented and matured on wood. By the early 20th century, using oak was nearly phased out except for traditional brewing cultures around Europe. Today, they are primarily utilized in the wine industry to impart the tannic qualities of the wood. However, sometimes these vats become spent - wherein the time it takes to extract those lignan characteristics from the wood becomes longer and longer to reach that acceptable level for that particular wine. Similarly, occasionally a batch of wine will become infected with a known variant of Brettanomyces. Once in there, it is near impossible to get rid of thus rendering the vessel a festering tub of uselessness and a point of further contamination for the rest of the winery.
Brewers love when that happens....

I should note that distilleries rarely use anything larger than the common 53 gallon barrel due to the SA to volume ratio of wood to spirit. Extraction is minimal, and time is exhaustingly long to get the same desired oak/vanillin elements.

So these barrels are put on the market by brokers and cooperages and the brewers these days are snatching them up like no other!

The Plan?

Our Foudre's that arrived April 23rd, are 45 hl (38 barrels or 1188 gallons) Horizontal oak tanks roughly 6 feet wide and 7+ feet long. They came with large oak floor craddles, and all the stainless accessories - Drain valve, beer valve, sample port, sight glass, and manway door - as well as a large rubber bung at the top.
The plan currently is to use two of them for Blue Sunday. The rest will be used for a few new brands we are testing the waters with, that have yet to be publicly announced.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

I first heard of Kvass during my Junior year in college whereupon I was researching different possibilities of making beer. This went along with my interests of other fermentates such as Kefir, Kombucha, Saurkraut etc...

Conveniently, my brother at the time worked at a Hyvee Bakery in Iowa City. Almost daily they threw away their stale bread, without even giving it to any soup kitchen or anything. My senior year, I asked Luke if he could save me a couple boxes worth of the bread. Weeks later, he had accumulated three larges containers worth of predominantly stale white and wheat loaves. I knew that traditionally Kvass was formulated on rye and other dark breads, but I had to use what was available.

First kvass Homebrew (Feb. 2011)

My first attempt was a bit of a crap shoot. I sliced all the bread into smaller pieces, threw a couple pounds of malted wheat along with clove, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves, all into the mash. I don't particularly remember the rest of my procedures, but do recall that it was fermented with a wild (house cultured) yeast and blended with Lemon and Kombucha. This sat for nearly six months to fully reach its potential. The finished product tasted extremely similar to a pilsner and was just as bright!
I brought a bottle to my interview at New Holland.

Brew Day inventory (300+ Loaves)

Fast forward a couple years later from my first kvass brewday and I got the opportunity to brew a version on a commercial 10 bbl system at New Holland's brewpub. I had been collecting bread from various festivals for nearly 4 months prior. Similarly, De'Boer's bakery would drop off the occasional box of hardly stale, sliced bread; and I would frequent Crust 54 on most weekends to pick up what was left of the stale bread. By February I had accumulated nearly 300 loaves, all that was left was tank space and a brew day to fit into the schedule.
Brew Day

Every type of bread

April 2 rolled around and I had my opening. The night before I took all the bread out of the pub freezer and let it defrost in the brewhouse area. I had planned my recipe around some traditional aspects, but with the intention of balance and complexity.

The decision behind this recipe was to use the malt to be more of a fermentable sugar and biscuit backbone to fuel the bready flavor profile. Using just the bread would not get my intended gravity of 2-3.5% ABV (though the traditional Kvass stands only between .5% and 1.5% ABV). Similarly, Kvass utilized whatever ingredients could offer a source of sugar, therefore to comply with that tradition, I used whatever stale grains that were left in partial bags around the brewery. The cinnamon sticks and coriander further encouraged some bready, spiced complexity.I preheated the mash and began mixing in the grain. Once all the grain was added, I continued to maintain temperature around 160 to ensure enough body and residual sugar in the finished product. My next step was to add the bread. This took quite sometime, as half the loaves were whole and unsliced. I did my best to slice all the bread. The mashing process took a little over an hour. One recommendation here is to use as much water as possible so as you work on adding the bread, the grain bed settles and the makes its own floating mash and doesn't make a sticky aggregate of soup, thus potentially clogging the mash when it comes to sparging.

Filled the entire Mash-Tun with bread!

The run-off went well and the boil lasted 90 min, during which 1 Ib of cascade was added and 2.5 gallons of molassas. I used our normal house yeast for fermentation of which will take an undecided extent of time. Gravity came out to be around 9.5 Plato, and it's finishing around 4.5-5.0 Plato. This ultimately will get us an alcohol of 2.5% ABV...Perfectly sessionable. The wort smelled of ginger snap cookies and toasted rye bread.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Night Tripper is a really special beer for us, in that it is one of the few large beers we make that isn't barrel aged. It still ages, however - on stainless steel for at least 4 months - developing, mellowing and improving in complexity the longer it sits.

Nevertheless, we couldn't resist putting it in barrels.

5 of them to be exact.

The best thing about barrel aging small batches is you can stow them away and forget about them, only to return every so often upon remembering they're still there, and taste them.

With the most recent batch, I had several varieties of barrels each filled with this sweet dark nectar. Some rum, some bourbon and some whiskey.

Aging ranged from 8 months to over a year! While a few barrels were finished off in our very own Zeppelin Whiskey barrels.

Blending was easy, working with 5 barrels, compared to the 130 + it takes for blue sunday.

I took the three best barrels at that point and trial blended them (just in tasting glasses). It was magnificent.

Finalized it that day and pulled those three barrels together in our small batch specialty tank.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Man, has it been a while since I last posted. After such a long hiatus, I'm going to get to posting again, and limit other external distractions that have prevented my time for posting (i.e. facebook).Here is a tasting I attended at Against The Grain Brewery & Alehouse a while ago. Rich is trying to host one at least every quarter. Everyone brought a bottle or two as an entry into the event. It was limited, which was nice - as everyone had an opportunity to try everything in an adequate amount.
One of the show cases of the night was a 50+ year old Belgian Sour that had made its way from a deceased mans basement collection in the 1950's through several Ebay driven beer geeks hands into the Quad Cities. Anyway here is what we tried:

Lindemans Cuvee Rene

White wine complexity and grapes skins. Balanced along with fruit and apricots

Sunday, January 6, 2013

We tapped this on Friday (Jan 4th) alongside Night Tripper. I'm realizing that it takes about a month to complete a batch of Kombucha, and I'm going to try to stick to that, give or take. I had influence for this one from Unity Vibration, and the fact that we had extra ginger laying around our spice cabinet. Tasted Sunday afternoon at the pub!
Pint Served
4.5% ABV

Appearance: Pale blonde in color with a hint of opacity. Upon the pour, it retains a nice white foam head of about a 1/4" but after several minutes it is reduced to a white ring around the glass. Clarity is impressive for lack of filtration and crashing. The intermittent bubble can be seen rising to the surface.Aroma: As the pint was put in front of me, I got an immediate whiff of funk acidity. The scent is interesting, faintly reminiscent of under-ripe "Red Delicious" Apples. To compliment, undertones of orange peel and coriander are present. Phenols run high.Taste: The carbonation hits the palate quick, and lasts through the rest of the tasting experience. Interestingly I get a lot of lemon rind flavors, of which I DID add to this. This flavor is prolonged on into the finish. I get a lot of interesting esters from the preliminary fermentation of the yeast, which faintly give off a character of artificiality but also clove and obvious ginger. As the kombucha beer warms, more of an ester/cidery flavor develops, which is quite pleasant.Mouthfeel: Carbonation is extremely fine, but nevertheless in high concentration as it foams up on the sides of the mouth and down the throat. Quite a light body in comparison to the Unity Vibrations Triple Goddess Ginger Kombucha, and finishes extremely dry and quenching.Overall Impression: I'm pretty happy with this one, especially for the balance of spice, kombucha, sweetness and alcohol. For now, I'd like to focus on getting those esters down, which may mean making bigger batches and crashing the yeast out. In case you get to try this, I also added bitter orange peel, lemon peel and coriander, alongside a generous portion of ginger. Enjoy!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Tasted at the plant with Jeff Dyke on Saturday afternoon as I was homebrewing a Nugget IPA. I purchased this beer from Kings Cove in Holland. Thanks to Dennis Kotecki for bringing Unity Vibrations out here!

Appearance: A pale straw color and a lot more clear then I was expecting. Still some haze is present. At first there looks to be very little carbonation, but as it sits, quite a few bubbles begin to grow along the sides.Aroma: Initially I get a note of somewhat of a solvent/artificial scent in conjunction with an orange/lemon juice concentrate characteristic. Strong perfume.Taste: Similar to the aroma, I get a boastful note of orange and lemon in the foretaste. To follow is a rich sweetness that gives depth and quaffability to the beers flavor. Ultimately the reidual sweetness balances the otherwise dominant emon, solvent, ginger and orange flavors that would otherwise overpower. The aftertaste is reminiscent of cider.Mouthfeel: Thicker than many kombuchas I've had. Carbonation is minimal, but enough to add a nice texture, though it may over enhance the solventy orange flavor. Finish is semi-dry, with a cloy at the roof of the mouth.Overall Impression: This kombucha has more of a residual sweetness than many I've had. In fact, it's the sweetest, thickest one yet. I don't know if a lot of that sugar was intentionally left unfermented. However, the spices are a unique far between twist on this crafted beverage. For my own learning, I may try to up the ginger on my next batch at New Holland.

Thanks to the Smith twins for giving me this beer during christmas weekend. We had a dinner party at Brandon Gittelman's where I received this beer. Tasted Saturday at the plant while brewing a Nugget IPA.

Appearance: Upon opening the can, a burst of foam spurted out. The pour erupted in a 2" head, that stood for several seconds before quickly dissipating and falling back into the beer. An adequately dark beer, that thins out around the edges. After several minutes, there is nothing on top of the beer, not a bubble...I'm guessing from the oils derived from using actual mole.Aroma: Roasted malt and rich notes of acrid coffee compose most of the aroma, followed by undertones of vegetable, chilies and spice(think cinnamon and nutmeg.n the moleTaste: A bit acidic and acrid in the front, noteably derived from the cocoa and/or coffee in mole. I was looking for more sweetness in this beer, instead I got an acidic, tannic flavor that nevertheless still maintains a lot of the key ingredients in mexican mole. I get the peppers, both toasted and fresh, along with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice among others. I would have thought, given from the cans description, the lactose would boost the body and sweetness. Instead I got nothing of that.Mouthfeel: Thin and highly carbonated. Very little body and the carbonation doesn't help this. Drying and leaves a slightly sour aftertaste (the beer is not sour).Overall Impression: Meh, some easy fixes in this beer, but just didn't have it going for it. The body was very thin, especially for adding lactose. The Cocoa contributed an acrid astringency. Oils from the mole may have reduced the head. It was fun picking it all out, but probably nothing I'd drink again.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

This was my first and only purchase from Sicilianos during my first time checking them out. Tasted Sunday morning while drinking tea and brewing my own batch of kombucha.
Snifter Served
8% ABV

Appearance: Upon pour, the beer takes on almost a fluorescent, radioactive pink/red appearance. In the glass, the beer is partially cloudy with very little carbonation (even the crack of the bottle cap let out only the slightest hiss). No head stands atop the liquid.Aroma: Fruity, funky and choked full of raspberry aromatics. Some of the esters perfuming from the glass give a faint rubbing alcohol/cleaner scent.Taste: My first impression was that this tasted extremely similar of mead with a strong phenolic backbone and estery spice beginning in the mid taste an growing thereafter. However, the proceeding samples gradually came off more and more medicinal, especially with the compliment of the raspberries. As it warms, more of the familiar vinegar/acetic flavor emerges.

Mouthfeel: There is still some residual sugar left over from the bottle conditioning and perhaps pre-mature crashing. This helps add a bit of body to the otherwise strongly acidic and light textured mouthfeel. No carbonated feel.Overall Impression: Certainly an interesting beverage. Something I would buy a pint of again if I saw it at a bar? Sure, to support the brewery, but to buy in the bottle again for $3.59 again? not a chance. Not especially drinkable given the strong phenolic and sugary flavors. With that 8% ABV, I think a second addition of sugar was too much. And the raspberries further added to the medicinal flavor.